Give McCain Credit

You have to give John McCain and his team credit: they know how to pick a VP.

NYT: John McCain selects Sarah Palin, the Republican Governor of Alaska

Sarah Palin has a lot of good things going for her as far as the Republicans are concerned:

1) She's a woman: What better way to try and drive those woman who are angry that Hilary Clinton did not get the nomination to the Republicans?

2) She is young: She's only 44 and will probably help to balance the criticism that McCain is as old as the dirt itself.

3) She's not in Washington: Alaska is about as far from Washington as you can get.

4) She is a staunch anti-corruption and anti-pet project crusader: You remember that Bridge to Nowhere in Alaska that everyone constantly made fun of? She was the one who cancelled the project. She has also been helping with the investigation into Ted Stevens (he's being investigated for letting oil companies pay for some construction on a house he owns).

1984

I just finished 1984, THE classic book about what society would be if we gave up all our personal freedom.

First thought: It's fucking depressing.

I mean, I knew it was going to be. You can't write a book about "big brother" watching literally everything without it being depressing. But still...

Its the sort of book that makes you want to immediately go out and yell "FUCK THE GOVERNMENT" at the top of your lungs just because you can.

1984 is worth the price of admission solely for it's take on how government works (even government today), why we need a giant military complex in the US, and why privacy is important even if you don't have anything to hide.

College Football this Saturday

College football officially starts this Saturday. I was curious what the readers think about MSU and UofM's chances this year.

My predictions:

MSU - 7-5 would be a good season. I just can't see us beating Cal, OSU, Wisconsin, or UofM. Beating any of those would be a huge coup for us. Penn State is the big question. Last year's game was fantastic. I hope for the same this year.

UofM - 9-3. UofM will probably lose to OSU and perhaps Wisconsin. UofM is harder to figure out, since they have a new QB, RB, and totally new offensive system. Their game with Wisconsin in week 4 will be the big test. If they really do have a working spread offense, they could beat every team they see. UofM still has the defense to beat any team.

Bob injuried

Poor Bob is injured. The vet is not 100% sure what is wrong with him, but he seems to have hurt something around his left shoulder. He can't seem to jump or climb stairs. Even laying down seems to really hurt the poor guy. Yesterday I watched him try to lay down three times before he finally found a way to do it without hurting himself:(

Countdown to Babies

Yesterday I wrote the little countdown application you see to the right. I'm pretty proud of it, even if it is only 30 or so lines of code (of course, just as I was going to post this I noticed the count was off by a day).

McCain + Wedding Crashers

Last weekend Sue and I were catching up on some Netflix movies when I had a truly horrible thought:

Is it possible that we as a nation could REALLY elect a guy who was, even for the briefest moment, in The Wedding Crashers?

Olympic Fever

I have Olympic fever in a bad way.

And not just for the big name events like gymnastics or swimming. I love watching all these different events that I've never heard of otherwise. Yesterday I was enthralled by rowing. The day before it was volleyball. The day before that I was watching water polo (did you know they can't touch the bottom for 8 minutes straight?) I didn't even know there was a event called steeplechase, but it sure is cool to watch! Even ping pong and badminton can hold my attention for a while.

Anyone else like to watch the less hyped events?

George Lucas is the Destroyer of Fun

This comic sums up my feelings on Star Wars:

http://ctrlaltdel-online.com/sillies.php?d=20080814

Cinderella Under Arrest

CNN: Cinderella, others arrested in Disneyland labor protest



Wow. Seeing that would be a really good way to screw up a kid for life.

No post in a while

I've been lazy about posting the last week.

Sue and I went to Chicago Sunday through Tuesday with Sue's family to see the sights and big city. It was fun, although a little more walking then I like:) Pictures will be coming soon.

America Today

This is exactly how I feel our foreign policy has been the run the last 8 years:

http://overcompensating.com/posts/20080714.html

3OH!3

Heard this song on 89x last night.



We have to all agree to hate this band right now for two very good reasons:

1) "3OH!3" IS NOT A FUCKING NAME! That looks like you had a seizure while typing your band name in.

2) Just on principal, I have to hate any band that comes up with, and then has the balls to release a song with, the following lyrics: "Do the Helen Keller & talk with your hips" (at about 2 minutes in).

89x online radio is odd

I've taken to listening to 89x online lately. One of the joys of working at home is that no one cares how I waste my bandwidth;)

One of the odd things about the online feed is that they don't play commercials in the streaming feed with one exception: a single Esurance commercial over and over again. Note to advertisers: hearing one commercial over and over and over again tends to make me HATE your product, not run out and buy it. Other than that anomaly, all they play during that time is loops of some of their theme music. So now I hate both their theme music and that commercial.

Also, you never realize how many commercials they play on the radio until you are listening to nothing but theme music for the entire time. It's sad that I would actually PREFER commercials.

Does anyone know why they don't just play their regular commercials during that otherwise dead Internet air time? I can't even figure out how they pay for keeping the stream running at this point.

Alcohol Makes Me a Bad Friend

On Sunday I introduced everyone to "Wandering Eric".

Wandering Eric is what I call the guy I become when I drink in social settings where I don't know everyone. The guys at Mike's bachelor party had already met Wandering Eric. I think it was a first for the ladies though.

Wandering Eric looks and sounds just like me, except that he has the attention span of a 2 year old and even less fear of other people than me. He wanders from conversation to conversation and injects questions or statements with no mind about whether he knows any of the people talking; in fact, he tends to favor people he's never met.

As a side note: Wandering Eric tends to throw up on the ride home from the 2+ beers he had to finish while playing that last game of Beer Pong (of which he is the greatest player ever!).

The Deep V

I came across this ad the other day. Apparently American Apparel is now selling Douchebag neck t-shirts. And they got the perfect model for it too. Doesn't that guy look exactly like what you think of when you think "douchebag"? Except for the purple shirt one. That one screams, "I just came out".

Actually, most of those pictures scream that...

McCain reaching now

Watch this ad from John McCain (particularly the first 5 seconds):

McCain: Celebrity Ad

Are you kidding me with this shit? Celebrity? That's an attack point now?

Worse, it then cuts to pictures of Britney Spears and Paris Hilton. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to get the implication: "Obama is just like these celebrities. Any day now pictures of him in a skirt with no underwear, drinking Red Bull at a party, and then crashing into a paparazzi's car will appear in the tabloids."

What worse, they don't even deny that was the point. When asked whether the campaign intended to imply that Obama is as "frivolous and irresponsible" as Spears or Hilton, McCain spokesman Brian Rogers replied, "I think that's exactly what we've been saying."

In the old days, you would have at least had the good sense to pretend you had no idea that it was bad to link him with those two. To come right out and say it like that? That's impressively evil.

Who doesn't know what a safe word is?

2 people in my poll voted that they didn't know what a "safe word" was, so as a public service I give you the definition below. If you're ever in a situation where you need a safe word, now you'll know. And if GI Joe taught us anything, it's that knowing is half the battle (the other half involves violence):

A safeword is a codeword or series of codewords that are sometimes used in BDSM for a submissive (or 'bottom') to unambiguously communicate their physical or emotional state to a dominant (or 'top'), typically when approaching, or crossing, a physical, emotional, or moral boundary. Some safewords are used to stop the scene outright, while others can communicate a willingness to continue, but at a reduced level of intensity.

Safewords are agreed upon before playing a scene by all participants. Many organized BDSM groups have standard safewords that all members agree to use to avoid confusion at organized play events.

In BDSM, the safeword is generally used so that the 'bottom' can scream "no, stop", etc. as much as he/she wants without really meaning it, and still have a way of indicating a serious desire that the scene stops. Accordingly, in theory a safeword is usually a word that the person would not ordinarily say during sex, such as red light, big tree, Rumba, scrambled eggs, Alabama, aardvark, or rhubarb.